De Menezes: The Met Is In Difficulty

The killing of M de Menezes is notorious. I will not recite the facts again.

It is dangerous to report snippets.

It is dangerous to report anything that you have not personally heard.

Lastly, I have no wish to prejudice any investigation.

However, the following small extract from The Times' report is disturbing:

The officer, known as Ken, ... told the jury “there was no identification from grey team [the surveillance team] at any time.”

I say no more.

The SS: Yes, The Acronym Has The Correct Associations For Our Social Services

The title link leads to what is far from the worst Social Services case of which I am personally aware. Fortunately, the Firm gave up its legal aid franchise some years ago and I no longer have to deal with dispiriting child care cases. This case, however, represents at a fairly average level, the arrogance, incompetence and self-confidence of our SS. That is why it is important. It is not an aberration.

It is the "self-confidence" that really grates. They never admit even the remotest possibility that they could be wrong. Once you come on to their radar; you are finished, your life is finished.

AND IT IS A LOTTERY WHETHER YOU ARE TARGETTED OR NOT!

This is the real disgrace. It is not about funding (although, it is about that as well). It is simply about which neighbour picks up the telephone and reports you.

Read the story; for once the Daily Mail have got it right.

Are Police Officers Attractive?

This is a direct quote from The Times and I cannot improve upon it by further comment. It is by Jack Malvern:

Two police officers who were asked to leave a pub for exuberant kissing were criticised by a magistrate for turning a drunken row into a police matter.

Nicola Stewart and Lisa Curchun, her girlfriend, both police constables, were asked to leave by Nicola Hackett, the landlady of The Old Cock Inn, in April last year. The pair reported Ms Hackett to their colleagues, who charged her with a public order offence. Penny Williams, presiding at St Albans Magistrates Court, cleared Ms Hackett and noted that the policewomen and two companions, who acted as witnesses for the prosecution, had drunk a “fair amount of alcohol” that night.

Ms Hackett said: “I can’t have my customers made to feel uncomfortable by public displays of passion, by gay or heterosexual couples."

Policeman v Police: Storm in a Teacup

"The walk down the passage was in fact recorded on CCTV and Sgt Morgan could be heard enquiring "yes" as the door was closed. There was some shouting and some seconds later the door opened and there had plainly been some altercation between the two men. The appellant alleged that Sgt Morgan had pushed him in the face and he repeated that on a number of occasions. He subsequently said that he had been grabbed by the throat. Both officers then made complaints about the incident. "

It was the tea!

"The appellant contended that it had been a racially motivated assault by Sgt Morgan. He sought to support his allegation by alleging that there had been inappropriate behaviour by the Sergeant all morning. He said that he had been treated in a contemptuous manner; for example, he had been required to make the tea, and had been required to answer the phone when in fact the Sergeant was much closer and could have answered it, and he contended that the Sergeant had been shouting and swearing at him. He was humiliated, he said, to be spoken to in this way in front of his peers when everyone was watching."

Yob v Police

I am not a criminal solicitor or, more accurately, I am not a solicitor who advises criminals. I do not even advise completely innocent people who happen to have been arrested for something they clearly did not do. I send them down the road. I stick to my last. I am a civil litigator and that is it. Expect more of me and you will be sadly disappointed.

This case did interest me, however:

G v Chief Constable of the West Yorkshire Police (Interested Parties: the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Secretary of State for the Home Department)

Gordon Bennett, you may say. With that lot involved this must be a momentous case of hugely significant public import involving fundamental questions of human liberties.

You may be wrong.

The yob (sorry, "persistent young offender") was detained for three hours at a police station. He only had "eight previous convictions, including three for violence" so naturally he complained that this was unlawful. How could they possibly suspect him of being involved in "an unpleasant incident on a bus in Leeds in which a number of youths attacked passengers"? Was it because he was on the bus? How dreadfully unjust!

You will want to read the full case (because you paid for it out of the legal aid budget funded by your taxes) but the nub of the conclusion was that the court was "entirely clear that, on any view, however one approaches it, the detention was lawful". An appeal may be being prepared now and my take on this case may be entirely wrong. I am not keen, however, on legal executives who carry around standard letters:

"Mr Conaghan informed the custody officer that in his view there was no proper basis for detaining the claimant since there was sufficient evidence to charge him and section 37 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act required that he be released on bail or charged. Mr Conaghan produced a standard letter to that effect and it seems that that is a letter which he customarily carries with him and produces at police stations when a situation such as that which existed in this case arises."

Who wrote that letter?

IMPORTANT NOTE

No insult is intended to the current Home Secretary by the use of Mr. Blunkett's photograph on this posting. Mr. Blunkett is an emblametic Home Secretary and, anyway, the rapidity with which that particular job parcel gets passed these days means that even the internet cannot keep up. Who is the current Home Secretary?

PS: No-one has told Mr. B he's not HS anymore judging by his appearances (should that be voiceacts?) on the Today radio show.